To tell the amount of CPs needed for a ship go to to CP ships under ships. Then when you have a enough for the desired ship (you have to be on the ground and not in a ship, facility or vehicle) you can click on exchange cps and you will see a list of vehicles/ships you can exchange for cps.
Hope this helps.

They missed a lot of information. You need to be on a planets surface, either in a city, or on a terrain square. You must be outside, you cannot be in another ship/vehicle/facility/whatever. CLick the Exchange CPs link and a list of all available entities to spawn will appear - their cost will be in red if you do not have enough to spawn, otherwise it will be white. Enter the number you wish to spawn, and hit hte button underneath.

As for the custom items, this you can do anywhere, and it will spawn in the room/grid where you are. Custom images can also be done anywhere and the entity will have its image changed once its accepted.

That's not an option, you can only spawn ships in the ground. That wouldn't go for a suggestion either because if you can spawn a ship in orbit, you can basically spawn a ship anywhere in space. Not to mention spawning ships in orbit is bad, come combat and you just go to orbit, spawn a ship and bombard that planet.

“That's not an option, you can only spawn ships in the ground. That wouldn't go for a suggestion either because if you can spawn a ship in orbit, you can basically spawn a ship anywhere in space. Not to mention spawning ships in orbit is bad, come combat and you just go to orbit, spawn a ship and bombard that planet.

- Ryan Roche”

I was suggesting that you could only do this while you (your PC) was located on the ground - just as always. The ship could spawn on the ground where you are located or in orbit around the same planet.

You would have to get to orbit to take possession of the ship in the latter case. You could actually bring a ship or vehicle spawned on the ground at your location into combat faster than a ship spawned in orbit in this scenario.

You bring up a good point about spawning things just to use them for hostile action. Perhaps it would be worth considering restricting CP spawning to friendly or neutral planets? The 'rationale' would be that on an unfriendly planet you do not have acces to the civilian and military sources that supply surplus equipment?

In my opinion, surely if you spawn a ship you want to be able to get into it straight away. If its orbit, you have to take yet another ship up there to retrieve it. In my opinion the current system works just fine.

“In my opinion, surely if you spawn a ship you want to be able to get into it straight away. If its orbit, you have to take yet another ship up there to retrieve it. In my opinion the current system works just fine.”

No. I want to sell the ship. I'm sure the buyer would find it more convenient to find the ship in orbit about a planet rather than an extra 2 hours down and 2 hours up to get to the same spot...

I admit from a buyer's point of view its more handy to have it in orbit, but from the point of view of the person who spawns the ship for personal use it's much more useful to have the ship at the location they are at.